I'm A Crafty Sun Warrior!

Good evening Beautiful,

Today flew by faster than I ever expected! What a weekend… From yesterday where I worked out, did some shopping and went to the spa to today where I met some old friends for lunch and knocked about 12 people off my Christmas list by making their gifts! I can’t talk much about the gifts because the recipients of said gifts read this bloggy and I don’t want to ruin the surprise for them! J. Let's just say, I'm VERY crafty this year!

I woke up today and realized how confused I was because my blackberry said one time and all the manual clocks in the house said a different time. I quickly remembered that the clocks went back last night…. So I got to lounge in bed this morning longer than I thought! I thought about going to workout, but because of yesterday’s “lower body domination” I can’t move quickly nor can I bend down to pick anything up off the floor, so I held off on a workout today – isn’t Sunday a day of rest anyways? J

For lunch 2 old friends of mine and I (and 4 of their friends) went to Live Food Bar! It’s located at Spadina and Dupont and it’s super cute and quaint. I’ve mentioned them before because it’s the same restaurant where my photos are up all over their walls. Haha, it was pretty fun, no body realized it was me… the people I was with knew, but no one else noticed. Wah waah. For lunch I ordered the Detox salad. Not because I was hung over or anything but it sounded interesting and I totally wanted to try it. It has kale, kelp noodles, assorted seaweeds, avocado, parsley and a lemon and hemp tamari dressing. It was so good!! Most of the stuff in the salad was completely new to me. The kelp noodles were totally fun and the assorted seaweeds were chewy but delish! Not fishy at all for those who are wondering… of course, the kale is nothing new but glad I could fit kale into 2 of my meals today (I’m having kale for dinner too… wonder how much kale I have to eat before I turn green…). For those unfamiliar with Live, it’s a raw, vegan restaurant… so naturally I told the waiter I wanted cream with my coffee and corrected him when he offered me soy milk. Right… vegan… no cream…. The soy milk tasted awful in the coffee that was French pressed. Needless to say I didn’t finish my coffee. For desert I had an almond halvah. I’m not sure what’s all in it, except almonds, sesame seeds and coconut… it was good though. Ben ordered a piece of chocolate pie made of raw cocoa and avocado… it was so cool!

As some of you know I’ve been looking for a new protein because I think my tummy is a little sensitive to whey so while I was at Live I picked up a bag of Sun Warrior Raw Vanilla Protein. I first heard about this from Tosca Reno when I was in one of her sessions at canfitpro this year, and knew that I needed to try it but wanted to use up the protein I had already since the stuff is so darn expensive. Anyways, I’m going to give you a little brag about why this protein is super cool. The front of the package says it’s a bio-fermented ray sprouted whole grain brown rice protein, complete amino-acid profile for 98.2& assimilation, it’s non-GMO, hypo-allergenic and made from 83% protein. Then the back of the package gets into a little more detail:

-          By using a third generation process, we have created the best tasted vegetable protein on the market with a silky smooth texture that blends well and tastes great compared with other chalky and grainy vegetable proteins.

-          We use an old world process of combining the sprouted endosperm and the bran from raw sprouted whole grain brown rice. This unique process creates the first complete hypoallergenic protein which is made up of all 9 essential amino acids and other non-essential amino acids in a perfectly balanced amino acid profile.

-          Sunwarrior protein has the highest net protein utilization source of any vegetable based protein and the highest ratio of amino acids converted to proteins.

-          Created with a low temperature natural process that does not use any chemicals of acid hydrolysis (like most proteins do!).

So all in all it’s a fairly good protein. It uses whole grains which isn’t paleo but I think I can get over it if it doesn’t upset my stomach. This is what it looks like:

Fancy huh? J

Tonight for dinner I’m making a fully paleo meal. This is what I’m having:

Prosciutto-Wrapped Scallops with Spinach

Ingredients
12 large dry sea scallops (about 1 lbs)
¼ tsp lemon pepper
1.25 oz of very thin sliced prosciutto cut into long strips
3 tbsp EVOO
1 tsp freshly grated lemon zest
1 tbsp lemon juice
¼ tsp salt
freshly ground pepper to taste
12 ounces of organic baby spinach

Directions
1. Place rack in upper third of the oven, preheat broiler. Coat a large baking  sheet with cooking spray (I used tinfoil)
2. Pat scallops dry and sprinkle both sides with lemon pepper. Wrap 1 piece of prosciutto around each scallop. Stick a tooth pick through to hold in place.
3. Broil on medium until just cooked through, about 6-10 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, whisk oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Reserve 1 tbsp of the vinaigrette in a small bowl.
5. Place spinach in colader and rinse under cold water. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. When hot, add handfuls of spinach (with water still clinging to it) to the pan and cook, stirring, until just wilted, 2 to 3 minutes. Drain the spinach and add to the medium bowl and toss to coat the spinach. Divide the spinach among 4 plates and top each portion with 3 scallops. Drizzle scallops with remaining vinaigrette.

Looks super good right? They taste AMAZING. I’m pairing mine with kale! J

How was your weekend? Did you do anything exciting? Any races out there? Fun new recipes? I’m keen to hear!! J

Stay sweet.
xoxo